Polite: Look to ABB case for ‘extraordinary cooperation’ example

What is “extraordinary” cooperation? How is a self-disclosure deemed “immediate”? With a series of new policy changes at the Department of Justice (DOJ) have come requests from the compliance community for more guidance. Don’t expect the agency to budge.

Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Polite Jr. of the DOJ’s Criminal Division reiterated in a speech Thursday the agency will not offer prescriptive guidance regarding how it evaluates corporate compliance programs.

“There is no one-size-fits-all approach,” he said. Instead, he addressed ambiguity around certain terms included among the DOJ’s policy changes by pointing to some of the agency’s recent cases and declinations and advising compliance professionals to “see how [the terms] are applied in future cases.”